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Billionaire Launches Free Code College in California (arstechnica.com)
Xavier Niel is the billionaire founder of France's second-largest ISP. In February he bought a former campus from DeVry University, and tried building something better.
Slashdot reader bheerssen writes: 42 US is a free coding school near Facebook's headquarters in Fremont, California. The courses are boot camp like experiences that do not offer traditional degrees, but hope to provide programming skills and experience to students for free.
Ars Technica calls it "a radical education experiment" -- even the dorms are free -- and the school's COO describes their ambition to become a place "where individuals from all different kinds of backgrounds, all different kinds of financial backgrounds, can come and have access to this kind of education so that then we can have new kinds of ideas." Students between the ages of 18 and 30 are screened through an online logic test, according to the article, then tossed into a month-long "sink or swim" program that begins with C. "Students spend 12 or more hours per day, six to seven days per week. If they do well, students are invited back to a three- to five-year program with increasing levels of specialty."
Ars Technica calls it "a radical education experiment" -- even the dorms are free -- and the school's COO describes their ambition to become a place "where individuals from all different kinds of backgrounds, all different kinds of financial backgrounds, can come and have access to this kind of education so that then we can have new kinds of ideas." Students between the ages of 18 and 30 are screened through an online logic test, according to the article, then tossed into a month-long "sink or swim" program that begins with C. "Students spend 12 or more hours per day, six to seven days per week. If they do well, students are invited back to a three- to five-year program with increasing levels of specialty."
Sounds like age discrimination, to me.
There must be thousands of older people between the ages of 30 and 55 whom are equally capable of contributing - and many of them already know how to program.
~childo
The courses are boot camp like experiences that do not offer traditional degrees, but hope to provide programming skills and experience to students for free.
(emphasis mine)
Question is: How do they make their money? Because I just do not believe there's no catch!! Anyone care to elaborate?
Finally, someone stateside is filling the gap between nothing and a full CS degree.
Cooper Union was established by the industrialist Peter Cooper in the 19th century and until recently also had a free tuition. It was established for the same reasons: lack of skilled labor needed by the industrialists in New York. The school has 3, essentially independent, divisions: art, architecture and engineering. While their ability to offer free very high quality education (Cooper Union was ranked 1st among engineering schools by US News for many years) has diminished, the idea was still pioneered in the 19th century. So it's not all that revolutionary.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
at least they'll be prepared for the coding sweatshops of the silicon valley
for fuck sake it never ends with you people. we don't want the jobs sent overseas, we don't want you to hire overseas workers here, we don't want you to invest in any kind of education that might prepare future generations of Americans for employment in your sector, we don't want you providing training for local workers.
some of you people here are so crap at your jobs that you're shitscared you'll be replaced by akmed from punjab province at $5 a day, the next round of college grads that took and intro to computers class during their studies or weed-smoking phil from down the street who spent 3 days at a code college training course. maybe you need to get the fuck of slashdot, stop whining and start adding value and being actually good something to the point that you're not trivially replaceable.
Is throwing quantity at this problem the right answer? If we train lots and lots of people in programming is it really going to help? Is it even going to be successful? How can people believe in this approach?
If someone opened a massive free school for training sculptors and enrolled 1000s of students no one would believe that they would end up with hundreds of Michelangelo's. They wouldn't get lots and lots of excellent sculptors. They'd be lucky to find a 1 or 2 really good ones out of every 1000 students. Then they'd find a few more fairly good ones and the rest would be mediocre to bad. Some would be able to create really elegant statues, some would be good at making blocks, bricks and tombstones and the vast majority would make gravel.
The only difference between this and the mass programming schools is that with sculpting most people could look at their rock based product and easily discern its quality. Not so for programming. That's why this industry is rife with gravel producing developers who try and pass their product off as statuary.
I think the public is being deluded about this.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
You answered the first question out of my mouth, when you noted that it was not accredited.
As a proud owner of Photoshop, I now have a "Certificate of Completion" from them.
When do they open, exactly, so I know when to put it on my resume?
for fuck sake it never ends with you people. we don't want the jobs sent overseas, we don't want you to hire overseas workers here, we don't want you to invest in any kind of education that might prepare future generations of Americans for employment in your sector, we don't want you providing training for local workers.
I completely agree with your sentiment... but this... from the summary?
"Students spend 12 or more hours per day, six to seven days per week. If they do well, students are invited back...
WTF? Is that to condition you for the jobs they plan on giving you when you 'graduate'?
And this from your post:
some of you people here are so crap at your jobs that you're shitscared you'll be replaced by akmed from punjab province at $5 a day, the next round of college grads that took and intro to computers class during their studies or weed-smoking phil from down the street who spent 3 days at a code college training course.
I am 'shitscared' of any trend that appears to be designed to reset the work-life balance scale down to industrial revolution levels. If the up and coming work force are conditioned to accepting 12 hour days, 6-7 days a week, that represents a problem, for all of us.
Except for the details
Details like Facebook's headquarters are in Menlo Park, not Fremont, with the SF Bay in between?
Putting a school like this in the SF Bay Area, where there are already oddles of opportunities, isn't doing much. If he wanted to make a difference, maybe he should have opened his school in West Virginia, or the Mississippi Delta.
Yup, everyone over 50 is well-off, no exceptions. Well, even if that's not true, then they only have themselves to blame. Didn't work hard enough don't you know. And if you're 35, or even 45, well, you can bugger right off! The world is fun when there are no shades of grey!
Release all the education materials and the lesson recordings online for free for anyone and everyone not rich enough to move there or live there.
True freedom is to give it to everyone everywhere.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So what we get out of these "boot camps" is people who know the current technology, can be used for 4-5 years, then get thrown away for the next batch.
I have to say, that's efficient. Provided you don't give a shit about them, that is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How is someone between 18 and 30 supposed to survive long enough to do this program - one that doesn't even give you an accredited piece of paper - if they're doing 12 hour days 6-7 days a week?
My bet is that after the trial period, the "survivors" will be doing 3 to 5 years of commercial coding for free as their "lessons". That's shittier than an internship.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
He is probably more interested in the public echo than in actually helping anybody.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Another one that started the same way is Carnegie Mellon University
Why the strawman argument? Nobody ever suggested anything of the sort. Are you being deliberately moronic or are you failing at basic reading comprehension?
The part where after the month, those that were most successful are invited back...
And for free, boarding and all. So what's the fucking problem? A free college-level education, free boarding included, with the price being to work your hands to the bone?
If you have a problem with this, either you do not need it/want it (which is fair), or you lack the discipline and agency to make it through. #firstworldproblem.